1/ so this morning I was ruminating on Cortez and how he burned his ships behind him to motivate his men... and I was thinking about the complexity of building a ship (even 16th century ships were super high tech, and in an "I, Pencil" sense, no one person knew how to make one).
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2/ and I started wondering "wait, he burned his ships, forcing himself onward...but what was the exit plan? How was he going to get back to Spain? Build a ship, from scratch, weave sales, twist rope, cast anchors, carve pulleys, make oakum and tar, make tools to chink joints...
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3/ no, this is flatly impossible. No one, even with 300 men, all of them experienced, could make a ship and get back to Spain. So I dove into El Wikipedia What I had not realized is that Cortez's expedian into what is now Mexico was not launched from Spain. IT WAS FROM CUBA
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4/ The Spanish had already colonized the Carribean and had been hanging out there for a QUARTER OF A CENTURY before the Cortez expedition. So this was not a 3,000 mile expedition. This was more like D-Day: hop off from England and cross a small pond >>>
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5/ with fellow country men, ships, and supplies just a few hundred miles away. HUH! I DID NOT KNOW THAT! So, the next thing I learned was that Cortez was NOT AUTHORIZED TO PULL THIS STUNT.
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6/ And, in fact, word of his shenanigans got back to Cuba, and the Spanish Governor of Cuba sent out a secondary expedition to go grab Cortez by the ear, and drag him back so that he could 'spain himself. Cortez, camped in what's now Mexico City, with the ruling family >
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7/ kept as sort of hostages / collaborators in a Vichy France kind of way. So Cortez learned that he was in trouble, and left the city in charge of his #2 while he headed out to intercept the backup expedition, to, I dunno, try to smooth stuff over? So what did #2 do ?
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8/ (This is some
@hradzka -explaining-hard-right-activists stuff here) What did Cortez's #2 do, while he was unsupervised for two weeks? YES, THAT'S RIGHT, s̶e̶t̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶r̶o̶u̶p̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶D̶i̶s̶c̶o̶r̶d̶ murdered the entire royal family while they were feasting. YOLO !4 replies 0 retweets 42 likesShow this thread -
9/ This worked ... poorly. The entire city which had already been dubious about the kinda-conquerers and their kinda-negotiated settlement realized that they were, in fact, conquers, and rose up. There was bloodshed. A wee bit.
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ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs Retweeted Roy
10/ several good comments herehttps://twitter.com/moheroy/status/1286704623244455936 …
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Roy @moheroyReplying to @MorlockPThey built new ships at Acapulco and discovered California. Age of Discovery mariners knew how to build entire ships from scratch because they had to be able to repair everything. They saved the iro and bronze parts when he “burned” his ships. They built new ships on Lake Texcoco2 replies 0 retweets 20 likesShow this thread
ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs Retweeted Roy
ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs added,
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ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs Retweeted Roy
ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs added,
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ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs Retweeted Roy
ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs added,
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